SEC Approves Equity Crowdfunding from Unaccredited Investors - <AUTHOR> http://www.sec.gov/news/pressrelease/2015-49.html#.VRSPA_nF8qx <comment><USER2> Sigh, I remain concerned that if you want to light off a bubble in Tech this is the way to do it. Time will tell of course.

The reason I am concerned is that the _last_ tech bubble was fueled by retail investors who got to buy stock in companies that IPO'd (but shouldn't have). A lot of people invested their savings into companies they were not prepared to evaluate reasonably. Relying instead on "trusted advisors" who often were financially invested in the stocks they advised going up.

No doubt there are some really honest and worthwhile crowd investing companies, just like there were honest and worthwhile financial advisers in the 90's and honest and worthwhile Mortgage brokers in the naughts. But their existence will not deter nor mitigate their dishonest counterparts who will ruthlessly, and with all the tools available to them (legal and otherwise), separate people from their money under the guise of "getting in on the ground floor of the next Google or Facebook." I want with all my being to be wrong about this, and would love for people five years from now to be able to see this comment and say "Gee what a cynic, he really didn't get it did he?" But that future is not the one I expect.

<comment><USER3> Why should only rich people get to invest in companies? Anyone can go to Vegas and blow their entire life savings, but buying shares in Dropbox or Oculus at launch is just too reckless?

<comment><USER4> I think people are able to evaluate their odds of winning in Vegas better than the odds of their tech investments paying off.

<comment><USER5> Here's a cheatsheet:

Vegas expectations = always negative, no matter how much time or thought you put into it

Private investing expectations = usually negative, but sometimes positive (and more likely positive with experience and effort, or within domains of personal expertise)

So why is the first a better deal to open to everyone without regard to wealth, whereas the second is so dangerous it must be encumbered with wealth- tests (not knowledge/skill/credential tests) and major legal barriers/overhead costs?

Here's an idea: let anyone invest, on the same basis as a traditional "accredited investor", whatever amount of cash they could also obtain, via withdrawals or loans, at a casino cashier cage. If it's OK to hand someone $10-20K in chips for negative-expectation games, why not let them invest $10-20K in maybe-positive-expectation learning experiences, without prejudice?

<comment><USER6> Poker in vegas has +EV in the right circumstances, as does card counting blackjack when coupled with player reward bonuses. Hell, roulette with a martingale system has a positive expectation if you have more money than the house and the bet size is unlimited.

<comment><USER5> So occasional +EV situations in Poker and Blackjack for a tiny fraction of the most disciplined players (and only at the direct expense of others) are why non-rich people are allowed to wager their entire life savings at roulette, lottery, and slot machines? And then even more than their net-worth, via lines-of-credit?

But then those same people – no matter how disciplined – must face large (practically insurmountable) paternalistic legal barriers against putting even a few dollars into private investments? Even in domains where they have personal expertise? And where the results can be positive-sum for all involved, rather than strictly zero- or negative sum?

The nonsense is still strong in the dichotomous regulation of gambling and investments. It's almost as if the paternalists want to protect poor people from becoming wealthy!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I run [http://agfunder.com](http://agfunder.com) and our General Counsel is a former Chief at the SEC.

This is a non-starter and will only be used in special circumstances. Just because you have rules that allow non-accredited investors to invest, most companies do not want investments less than $10-15k on their capable. In effect you exclude most non-accredited investors anyways. The exception of course is for the earliest stage companies, but then they run into another problem: legal fees on a Reg A+ Are going to run you $40k-$70k. Compare that to $2-$5k for legal using a YC/500/TechStars template doc. The cost of admission is to high.

FundersClub and AngelList will also not benefit from this either because the New rules don't extend to fund structures like the 506(c) rules. So even if you could create some reusable template document with exhaustive disclosures you can't use it for these purposes. Jobs Act 2.0 may address this next year, but for now these rules are largely useless in practice.

<comment><USER8> The concern is not about the conduct of people with a former SEC grand poobah on retainer.

People running scams won't worry about all that stuff that separates legitimate from illegitimate. What this does is provide an easier way to appear legitimate to a wider section of the population. $70k in legal fees is just chump change if you can get 1000 $2k investors in two hours over the internet. And maybe get a small time lawyer to do the paperwork in exchange for equity.

<comment><USER7> First, these need to be reviewed by the SEC. Second to raise this money on the Internet you are going to have to go to a platform with a large base of investor (Most of those will have broker dealer licenses ame will do their own DD). Next You are assuming that just because something is online that tens of thousands of people are automatically willing to plop $10-$1000 to invest. Well I'm sorry, but that's not how it is going to work. Companies in Europe with lots or press are only raising a few hundred thousand. To move the needle you need much larger checks. At some point, something will slip through but it will be an anomaly and the overall risks are outweighed by the benefits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Access to capital shouldn't require flushing $100k down the drain to get started. I have faith the technology will evolve to make companies click-to- start, and cheap to maintain, even allowing unregistered securities in those companies to be traded freely by the public.

To the companies who are trying to build walls and dig trenches around marketplaces which serve this end, personally I hope they all fail, and we end up with a distributed network which can host the necessary ledgers and market- making functions required.

If anyone here has the legal chops to help build this, please email me ;-) I've done my own 506(b) and I could build the distributed trading engine (did similar work on colored coins) and I would love to open source and democratize a platform for this.

I look at what SolarCity did with SolarBonds, which is a platform built by Common Assets who they acquired (unknown amount), if you've tried that platform, I think you have a taste of how SME companies could sell their equity.

I think the right platform can also significantly reduce the burden of an extremely long-tail cap table.

From a fund / roll-up perspective, the companies host their own trading platform, there's no reason the funds can't buy shares right on there, bundle, and resell the mix to their LPs. Someone like FounderFund benefits by being able to cheaply (as in transaction fees) acquire equity in many company who are running the A+ platform.

<comment><USER10> It does seem like a lot of overhead. I've been reading this with interest because I had been wondering if it might have positive implications for indie film financing (which usually goes through regulation D for mid-size projects; there's a real opportunity for seed/small project financing at the bottom end of the market), but don't see these changes having much impact in the short term.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The headline is not quite right. These are rules implementing Title IV of the JOBS Act, which facilitates offerings by small companies subject to certain filing and disclosure requirements. The rules for Title III offerings through an internet fundraising platform (the real "crowdfuding" provisions of the JOBS Act) are still pending.

A better headline might be "SEC adopts rules for small public offerings."

<comment><USER12> Thank you for that, I was very misled by the title. Can you possibly explain this one bullet point in the text? (Only mention of a non-accredited investor). "A limitation on the amount of securities non-accredited investors can purchase in a Tier 2 offering of no more than 10 percent of the greater of the investor's annual income or net worth."

<comment><USER11> Companies can sell to both accredited and non-accredited investors. But non- accredited investors can't purchase more than the 10% annual income/net worth limit.

<comment><USER13> The good news is they can still invest the other 90% in penny stocks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's about time really. Here in the UK equity crowdfunding has given much needed capital to businesses.

Does everyone invest? Hell no. Do wealthy people now diversify their portfolios with risky start ups? Yes.

There are vigilant checks every investor has to go through that limits the amount of capital they are allowed to invest which limits the risk for even the littlest of guys.

When you go to invest you are warned, I mean REALLY warned several times that you will probably lose your investment.

This could actually reduce said "bubble" as private investors are not stupid and the valuations you see are very modest.

My final point would be that the fundraising activities are open. The companies are subject to heavy scrutiny through Q&A's and all potential investors can see these conversations occurring.

I personally have chosen not to invest in companies that others are flocking too as their answers to my questions are so theoretical and I know many investors who have felt the same.

<comment><USER15> That's a good point. There's been a lot of scaremongering on this issue, which ignores the fact that in various other countries the general public has been able to invest in startups for a long time, without the ill effects so many people predict in the U.S.

<comment><USER16> For whatever reason, the US seems to dislike experience from outside the US - that goes for both regulators and voters.

Despite Canada, Europe and Japan having efficient functional socialized medicine for at least half a decade, the discussion in the US was about "death panels" and "health welfare queens" and other completely nonexistent issues anywhere else.

There are a lot of other such issues, such as gay marriage, gambling, etc - that I don't find it surprising that crowdfunding is also part of that group of subjects. I only find it sad.

(On the other hand, significant gun-associated violence is practically unheard of outside the US, even in places that have comparable gun density such as Switzerland and Israel, where almost all males have access to guns, and some cities in Canada; So maybe the US actually is a special case)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've been reading through the sections for the past hour, so not enough time to get the full context, and a few questions arose:

1\. I see that companies using Rega will have to file with the SEC, but does that mean the registering companies will be private or public?

2\. If registering companies have to disclose information and it is available on EDGAR, will it be on EDGAR as a reference to a hard copy or will it be available to view online?

3\. Is it possible to see a list of companies actively seeking crowdfunding that are currently pursuing Rega exemption? Or is it considered a private offering?

There are more questions, but I think that's a good start to get out of the way for us.

</comment><comment><USER18> Shameless plug here - I'm Todd Crosland, one of the co-founders of [http://seedequity.com](http://seedequity.com), and we are deeply interested in solving these information asymmetry issues, risks, and cap table problems mentioned here. We'd be very interested in getting feedback from any of you about our process and are always seeking better ways to reduce these risks.

We are a registered broker-dealer with the SEC, which means that we have extremely high compliance requirements for advertising, employee licensing, bad-actor background checks, data security, audits, and more. We try to go the extra mile with our background checks, rejecting founders and investors with backgrounds with any hint of questionable behavior, even if they haven't broken any securities laws. Our regulations require us to share disclosure documents, which describe the risks faced by each company, allowing investors to have a balanced view of each offering.

From what I can tell spending time in Silicon Valley over the years, it appears that some of the discouraging wealth disparity there exists because a select group of employees and investors has had access to equity in great companies, while the rest of the population is shut out. With the SEC's carefully crafted protections in place for non-accredited investors, hopefully more small-time investors will have access to high quality, medium to pre-IPO -sized companies. If such companies are willing to accept many non-accredited investors in Reg A+ offerings, they will need a regulated entity, like a broker-dealer, to help them.

In any case, I'd be grateful to hear your feedback. You can reach me at crosland at seedequity dot com.

</comment><comment><USER19> A long overdue step in the right direction.

Some historical perspective on the history of what I like to think of as the "Cookie Licker Laws" [a].

A middle-of-the-road option for both investors and entrepreneurs in this space has been desperately needed for quite some time. The path from modest wealth to the truly lucrative risk-reward based ROI that comes from being to invest intelligently in emerging ideas and trends ... this path has been littered with roadblocks and land mines for way too long.

On the investor side ... a ~couple years ago I remember being pretty upset that Lending Club didn't publish their "investor income / net worth requirements" straightaway transparently their site. Rather, they first send investigators on the wild goose chase through their idiotic application process.

As far as the entrepreneur side goes: YC has become a less and less attractive option for companies that might not (at least not obviously) quite make it to the $10B potential breakout point that they're looking for: _I always tell my partners that our job is to fund all the companies we can that can be worth $10 billion or more. That's such a difficult constraint we can't have any other constraints._ [b]

Not every business idea should have to be that "big" to be given a fair shot at the route from small-time garage venture to IPO.

[a] [http://ink.hackeress.com/2013/09/what-title-ii-of-jobs- act-m...](http://ink.hackeress.com/2013/09/what-title-ii-of-jobs-act-means- for.html) [b] [http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/03/25/sam-altman-why- hardwa...](http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/03/25/sam-altman-why-hardware- could-yield-the-next-10-billion-startups/)

</comment><comment><USER20> > Additional Tier 2 Requirements:

> A limitation on the amount of securities non-accredited investors can > purchase in a Tier 2 offering of no more than 10 percent of the greater of > the investor's annual income or net worth.

Do these modest limitations on non-accredited investors _only_ apply to Tier 2 offerings? I.e., can a non-accredited investor put 100% of net worth into a Tier 1 offering?

<comment><USER21> Tier 1 offerings are available to accredited investors only. Here's a link to the final ruling: [https://www.sec.gov/rules/final/2015/33-9741.pdf](https://www.sec.gov/rules/final/2015/33-9741.pdf)

<comment><USER22> I originally thought the same, but I couldn't find in the final ruling where it states that Tier 1 offerings are restricted only to accredited investors.

Also, I saw a SeedInvest summary article on the proposed rules and it stated: "Anyone can invest: Not limited to just "accredited investors" – your friends and family can invest. Tier 2 investors will, however, be subject to investment limits described below."[1]

A law firm called Morrison Foerster also has a nice summary table on page 9 of their Regulation A+ client alert[2].

[1] [http://www.seedinvest.com/blog/regulation-a-equity- crowdfund...](http://www.seedinvest.com/blog/regulation-a-equity-crowdfunding- rules/)

[2] [http://www.mofo.com/~/media/Files/ClientAlert/2015/03/150326...](http://www.mofo.com/~/media/Files/ClientAlert/2015/03/150326RegulationA.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This must be good news for FundersClub and crowdfunding startups like Kickstarter (maybe good for P2P lending companies too).

It may not be good for people who are unknowingly bad at evaluating companies. Seed stage investment is extremely risky for the common investor.

<comment><USER24> _A limitation on the amount of securities non-accredited investors can purchase in a Tier 2 offering of no more than 10 percent of the greater of the investor's annual income or net worth._

I think this would contain the risk.

<comment><USER22> This contains the risk somewhat, except I think the limitation for non- accredited investors only applies for each Tier 2 offering, and doesn't act as an aggregate limitation on a per year basis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> So does this enable stuff like, say, crowdcube in the US?

Because personally I always thought kickstarter should have been a platform for micro-investment rather than (effectively) a pre-order shop that sometimes lets people down.

</comment><comment><USER26> I've seen thousands of equity crowdfunding platforms and numbers are somewhat alarming. While we have leading platforms(think Angellist), there are many competing WordPress platforms with security and marketing issues.

In order to compete, these platforms will promise a "money fast scheme" promising to turn $50 into $50k. The main issue is that 1000x unicorns would rather do it the other way and most available startups would be somewhat inferior in terms of investment.

While it's good to have this provision, it doesn't change a lot of the landscape of investors.

</comment><comment><USER27> > The exemption would be limited to companies organized in and with their > principal place of business in the United States or Canada

Any thoughts on why they included Canada?

</comment><comment><USER28> The important part is preempting state law requirements. That's the only reason this matters.

</comment><comment><USER29> Does this mean people may be able to purchase equity through something like kickstarter?

<comment><USER25> I didn't get an answer on my similar question, but here in the UK we have something like that in operation already - crowdcube.com

I've not used it yet myself, but I find the idea compelling because it allows people to actually invest in companies that need funding, rather than just pre-order.

It seems to support loans with a set interest rate or actual micro-equity. I might actually get around to investing through it someday...

<comment><USER30> There's been a boom in France as well in crowdfunded equity. A startup I did some work for did it, and were happy with the results.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Interesting that this shows up on HN on the same day as: "fantasy angel investing" [http://exchangel.co/](http://exchangel.co/)

</comment><comment><USER32> 1999 bubble is from secondary market. Now it's the first Primary market.

</comment><comment><USER33> before getting too excited, let's see how it looks when it is ready.

</comment><comment><USER34> I submitted this earlier today, but without changing the title. I guess HN allows resubmissions if there's meaningless text after the URL?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9269737](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9269737)

<comment><USER35> It does and it should make you happy a story you found interesting enough to submit is getting enough traction now for discussion.

<comment><USER36> At the same time, it's useful for the site as a whole if people who submit interesting stories are rewarded with karma and not downvoted.

<comment><USER37> Karma isn't a reward.

<comment><USER38> Totally agree.

I see no reason why there needs to be a count of how much karma one has collected. I like being able to see upvote and downvote counts for individual comments and posts, but I need not know how much I've accumulated, and I'll say that I think it's detrimental to any given online community.

<comment><USER39> For some reason there is a leaderboard though :-)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders](https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders)

<comment><USER40> On the upside, since this isn't a competition, I'm not losing!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> year 2000 here we go!

</comment><comment><USER42> No, no it does not. How is this headline still up? It's totally inaccurate. Equity crowdfunding from unaccredited investors was provided for in the JOBS Act. The SEC doesn't get to set the law, Congress does.

What the SEC has been doing has been figuring out rules for how this law will be implemented. NOT allowing equity crowdfunding was never an option.

Here is the SEC headline: "SEC Adopts Rules to Facilitate Smaller Companies' Access to Capital"

That is accurate.

Here is the fourth sentence of the press release:

"The rules are mandated by Title IV of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act. "

It's really embarrassing this has been up on Hacker News so long and not fixed (or commented on? wow).

<comment><USER43> I think anyone interested would already know all of that.

Without the SEC rules crowdfunding is in stasis. With rules things can move forward. I don't think anyone thinks the SEC is affecting the existence of crowdfunding beyond that.

Accuracy of language is important but so is context.

<comment><USER42> It is simply inaccurate to say SEC "approved" crowdfunding. It is outright wrong. Saying that "anyone interested" would know the truth doesn't change that.

"With rules things can move forward. "

The SEC is legally REQUIRED to issue rules.</comment></comment></comment>


German police stop families taking children out of school early for vacation - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/05/21/613188244/german-families-playing-hooky-stopped-by-police-at-airports-may-be-fined <comment><USER2> A lot of Americans admire Germany's progressivism, but don't fully appreciate it comes at the expense of sharply curtailed personal liberties.</comment>


Wraith – A screenshot comparison tool from the BBC - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/BBC-News/wraith

<comment><USER2> See also [https://github.com/bslatkin/dpxdt](https://github.com/bslatkin/dpxdt) , a more featureful/complex implementation of the same idea. It also has some discussion of why you'd want to do this.

<comment><USER3> I wrote [https://github.com/gabrielrotbart/gatling](https://github.com/gabrielrotbart/gatling) ages ago. It integrates visual testing into normal Rspec specs. Focusing on specific elements rather than full pages, makes it more stable.

Maybe it's time to revive it.

<comment><USER4> I'm sorry but… are you an idiot? this is the coolest thing ever. Like, my mind is blown right now. I futzed with something that did the whole page but wasn't really impressed by it. but this is 100x better. Like, you changed my life this morning.

<comment><USER3> Thanks (I thought that line was going to end differently considering how it started).

I didn't put it out there because, although it's functioning perfectly, I'm not happy with the internals and would like to find time to refactor it before sending it out to the world.

<comment><USER5> My advice would be to release it anyway, warts and all.

You'll never be truly happy with the internals and, if you're like me, you'll be forever "1 final refactor, 1 extra tweak" away from perfection.

<comment><USER3> You're right. Although it is 'released' in a way, it has quite a few downloads on Rubygems even though I've never put it out there (HN posts etc).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For those wondering what purpose this serves: [http://responsivenews.co.uk/post/56884056177/wraith](http://responsivenews.co.uk/post/56884056177/wraith)

</comment><comment><USER7> I would love to see this integrated with something like GitHub's image diff presenter.

Example: [https://github.com/cameronmcefee/Image-Diff-View- Modes/commi...](https://github.com/cameronmcefee/Image-Diff-View- Modes/commit/8e95f70c9c47168305970e91021072673d7cdad8?diff-0=3-100)

Information: [https://github.com/blog/817-behold-image-view- modes](https://github.com/blog/817-behold-image-view-modes)

<comment><USER8> You would just need to run a script that runs phantomjs (casperjs and you can run tests at the same time) and saves screenshots of different pages in your app. Then it checks in the images (possibly in a different repo that is just for comparing screenshots). This could be done as part of continuous integration. Whenever deploying one could generate a compare view with the last deployed revision.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't see the value of this. What sort of use case does this have?

<comment><USER10> Pixel perfect on all browsers?

<comment><USER11> Bear in mind that this uses a webkit based browser for all shots, so it doesn't give cross-browser comparisons.

It is for regression testing of css modifications, whether from developer or simply when using some kind of compression tool on source code you know is correct.

<comment><USER12> According to the page, it supports both PhantomJs (Webkit) and SlimerJs (Firefox/Gecko)

<comment><USER13> It does, kind of crudely though. You have to comment out a method and then comment out another.

There's a ruby refactor that allows you to just specify an environment var.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I am interested in limited image recognition and pattern matching for an iPad app of mine. For example, I'd like to recognize when there are the red, yello, and green buttons to the left of a point in an image and the edge of an active window just above, so I can provide instant feedback of some kind (probably based on a filtered+recolored version of the top of the window which is being moved) for a VNC app. Eventually, there will be feedback from the server, but limited feedback generated locally will feel much better.

Any recommendations? I already know of OpenCV.

<comment><USER15> I'm by no means a computer vision expert, nor did any of my education cover the subject, but I have been dabbling in it long enough that I started a company based on limited CV.

What I do is think of ways I can cheat. Sometimes an algorithm that looks really complex in mathematical notation boils down to a _for_ loop for X, and a _for_ loop for Y, iterating over every pixel in the image looking for some feature.

If you know where your buttons will appear, roughly, you can scan that rectangle in your double for loop until you hit a long enough sequence of red, then continue scanning for a sequence of yellow, then green. If you're looking for the edge of a window, scan for a solid line of the window border color.

Basically, think of the simplest possible way to express what you want to know. Your algorithm doesn't need to have a clue what a button is, or have any real intelligence. It feels like cheating, really, but it works quite well for simple tasks.

<comment><USER14> Sounds good. But I've also heard that there are template based algorithms, which would seem to be advantageous for implementing window corner recognition in a variety of operating systems. Basically, I'd just need some images from screenshots. That plus some edge detection would get me most of the way there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Great to see more visual regression testing tools on the block. [https://github.com/Huddle/PhantomCSS](https://github.com/Huddle/PhantomCSS) has been around a while now and does pretty much the same thing (as far as I can tell).

Good reporting on failed regression is almost as important as detecting them which is why I developed this on top of PhantomCSS [https://github.com/Huddle/PhantomFlow](https://github.com/Huddle/PhantomFlow)

</comment><comment><USER17> See also [https://github.com/techbelly/web_regression](https://github.com/techbelly/web_regression).

</comment><comment><USER18> See also [http://zucchiniframework.org/](http://zucchiniframework.org/) \- similar idea, but more automated for testing iOS apps.

</comment><comment><USER19> Is there any reason why you couldn't do this non-visually? That is, using PhantomJS to determine that a DOM element is within certain bounds for a position using if statements?

<comment><USER20> There's a few reasons:

Simplicity. This automatically tests the whole page "for free".

Robustness of feedback for time spent. A small visual change could cascade into lots of tests cases that must be updated (rendering is hard, look how long it took IE to get it right). You don't need to update any tests with this tool, you just give the OK to a visual diff with expected changes.

Dynamic content. The BBC homepage is going to be different every day. Writing tests to test this could be arduous and error prone. Testing production content on build 779 vs 780 is a simple way to test regressions.

<comment><USER21> More importantly, you don't need someone technical to tell if it's an important change. This can easily be signed off by QA, designers, PMs, etc. They can see what it was before, after and what changed and decide if that's OK.

Also, the difference between a wanted visual change and a break is dependent on the change you want. That makes this quite a flexible tool (it's not just "any difference is wrong") that can be used simply and is unlikely to have false negatives (while making it easy to ignore false positives).</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Ideas on how engage attendees at YC demo day (today!)? - <AUTHOR>

Hackers,
We have a pretty solid beta version of an anonymous venue-based chat app called Roomvine. We were hoping to have it used at today's YC demo day as a way for people (attendees and presenters) there to anonymously interact with each other and give uninhibited feedback about the demos as they happen. (Check this picture for what it could look like: https://twitter.com/Roomvine/status/501771295952883712)
Tried networking, twitter/Facebook ads and tweeting people who are there to trigger some participation but no luck.
Any ideas on how we can still turn it around? It would be a pretty useful interaction and feedback tool in such a setting.
Thanks :)
www.roomvine.com <comment><AUTHOR> NB: The conversation in the comments here explain what the full use-case vision of this platform is:

[http://www.producthunt.com/posts/roomvine](http://www.producthunt.com/posts/roomvine)</comment>


Nvidia Vid2vid: High-resolution photorealistic video-to-video translation - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/NVIDIA/vid2vid <comment><USER2> I'm probably being captain obvious here, but if this is what's being released for free, I wonder how much better a polished commercial version does, and when we reach the point where we can't trust anything we see anymore. It doesn't even have to be super perfect, even reaching the point where it takes experts about two weeks to determine if something's real or not might already be long enough to do great damage.

From a technical standpoint I think this is very impressive, and I'm also interested in creative/artsy use of this. Their "replace trees by houses" example is pretty dull but gives a good glimpse at what can be done.

<comment><USER3> It could also lead to crimes like Blackmail becoming extinct. It would be hard to hold incriminating recordings of anyone over them if near-perfect audio and video synthesis was common.

Especially for public figures with lots training data available.

<comment><USER4> Yeah... The problem is try explaining deepfakes to your significant other when they are randomly sent what looks like a video of you cheating on them. Sure it's possible but not likely.

<comment><USER5> It's all a matter of cultural awareness. Everyone now thinks when seeing an unlikely photo -- "Photoshop?"

This stuff even has the catchy name "deep fake".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> From the paper: "we have to use all the GPUs in DGX1 (8 V100 GPUs, each with 16GB memory) for training. We distribute the generator computation task to 4 GPUs and the discriminator computation task to the other 4 GPUs. Training takes ∼10 days for 2K resolution."

As I don't have a DGX1 here, training the 2K resolution net for 10 days on a p3.16xlarge instance (also has 8 V100 GPUs) would cost USD 5875 on AWS. (USD24.48 per hour on-demand pricing * 24 hours/day * 10 days)

<comment><USER7> The DXG-1 costs $129,000 so AWS is cheaper unless you need to do it 22 times. And you can have multiple instances running at once and get all of your results in ten days, instead of waiting ten days again for each run.

<comment><USER8> Or you can build your own 8x2080Ti rig which will have 80% of performance for 1/10th of the cost.

<comment><USER9> DGX 1V has $7500 worth of CPU alone to feed the gpus. Throw in 8 TB of nvme ssd for training data and you're looking at something more like 1/5th the cost.

V100 has ~50% higher memory bandwidth than 2080Ti, so you probably wouldn't get 80% of the performance. Also, only two 2080Ti can be connected via nvlink.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Seeing the example of one facial pose video transcribed to three different looking women, I'm imagining a future where Netflix does a/b testing on its shows, using similar tech to swap out different "actors" to find which one resonates with audiences best.

They could even generate a new "cast" for each market, after only shooting the show once.

<comment><USER11> Porn industry will benefit the most.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Some applications for this kind of tech:

\- Porn, yeah, first application you can think of, there are already some startups doing it.

\- Doubling actors, and applied to sound, maybe you could translate from one language to another but kind of keeping the accent and tone.

\- Propaganda and misinformation. Now you can get your enemy to say and do whatever you want, on video.

\- Photo-realistic games. Create a rough 3D model of an scenario and train the AI for it. Instead of photo-realistic rendering with math, render it with the AI based on a rough render, in real-time.

<comment><USER13> > Photo-realistic games. Create a rough 3D model of an scenario and train the > AI for it. Instead of photo-realistic rendering with math, render it with > the AI based on a rough render, in real-time.

According to last month's nvidia rtx presentation/launch event [1], they are going to do something similar quite soon. Games will ship with DNN pre-trained offline on extremely high quality renderings. Game itself renders at lower resolution (limited by performance needed for proper raytracing) and uses DNN to upscale it.

[1] [https://youtu.be/Mrixi27G9yM?t=51m15s](https://youtu.be/Mrixi27G9yM?t=51m15s)

<comment><USER14> I wonder, since the NN cores of the GPU are used for real-time raytracing, will they be able to run custom NNs possibly not related to visual stuff in parallel to the ray-tracing stuff?

Edit : found the answer on Internet, apparently the RT (raytracing) cores are different and separated from the Tensor (NN) cores on the RTX

<comment><USER15> I think this is about trading storage for computation - you replace terabytes of model/texture data with a compute heavy NN.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I am a bit surprised how shallow the comments on this one are.

Look closely, while it does generate videos of a passing similarity, they aren't "photorealistic" in the slightest. They _are_ good locally across time and space domains, but globally they are as far from realism as Doom 2 was.

The only explanation for the attitude I see in this submission is that most IT people trained themselves to spot CGI by looking at local artifacts, assuming that global artifacts won't happen because stuff on the scene is _reasonable_. There is no "stuff on the scene" with those videos, it's just mindless vector manipulation with no underlying world model. Cars wave around, trees grow a feet from each other and behave in a way incompatible with 3D perspective.

Relax, it'll require at least another AI/ML revolution (or even several) to achieve photorealism.

</comment><comment><USER17> What media would someone collect now to be used in the future to reproduce the likeness of loved ones? Video clips of them moving? Talking? Different poses of pictures? Reading the dictionary out loud to get vocal patterns?

Heck with impersonating the POTUS. What about a lost friend, sibling or parent?

<comment><USER18> Black Mirror did this I think - if we can make video, then why not VR (down the line if processing catches up), Second Life iterated.

Heaven on Earth?

<comment><USER19> Also see the film Marjorie Prime.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjorie_Prime](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjorie_Prime)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Am i reading that right? Its making the videos that look real, from the simplistic input?

If so, that is amazing.

And if so, how do I turn a video I have into a simple/line version, to be able to then put a different 'skin' on it?

<comment><USER21> The level of realism can be gauged from the examples they provide right there on the page. Of course your results may vary basing on the initial bulk of data of realistic source images you use.

You have the code right there on Github, just install it on some PC with powerful GPUs (or rent one), tune some parameters, train the network and you can do the same things.

<comment><USER22> The hardware they used costs tons of money, and so does doing on a cloud provider. It's not something to do in a weekend with your gaming card.

<comment><USER9> It is if you drop the resolution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm scared. I can't trust anything I haven't took myself. The problem is that other people not even know that this technology exists and if you tell them about it, you're a lier.

<comment><USER24> I don't think there's going to be a long period where this technology is being used and isn't widely known about. It'll be used extremely quickly to abuse people using their Facebook pictures, and once there's a Facebook angle the media will be able to run with it and everyone will get it.

<comment><USER25> It's already being used for quite a while and you talk as if you aren't aware of the fact. Quite Ironic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is why some people believe that Assange had been dead for more than a year.

</comment><comment><USER27> Cant wait someone to put Simpsons through this

</comment><comment><USER28> Is there a way that a person could create a QR code made from one-way private key? The QR code would contain date and time and other Metadata that is decrypted with a public key that proved the QR code in the video was made by, for example, the person in the video? This would "prove" the video was real? I guess the speech would still be manipulated. So the whole transcript would have to be encrypted in this way...

<comment><USER29> I don't know why you're talking about QR codes and transcripting/encrypting the audio when you can just sign the file?

        gpg --sign video.mp4

<comment><USER30> I assume they are talking about signing/watermarking a video in a way that survives video encoding/lossy transmission. A QR code probably wouldn't work for various reasons but is an easy mental analogy to think of.

<comment><USER29> For embedding, you should just put it in the metadata. Encoding it in the video itself... I don't really see the point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> It would be interesting to see the applications of this technology with the use of thermal cameras. Extracting environments from thermal imaging would be nice.

</comment><comment><USER6> One of the example translates a full human pose to a video of a dancer. If the network would be trained on the facial pose(?) / features only, would that recreate something like the facial reenactment in [http://niessnerlab.org/projects/thies2016face.html](http://niessnerlab.org/projects/thies2016face.html) (source code for face2face is not public)?

<comment><USER32> Look into Deepfake, that's the tool 4chan is using for face swapping in their fake porn

<comment><USER6> Yes, but it just cuts out the face and pastes it on a different person/background. It does not do full reenactment where you keep the entire target video environment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> If you have any doubts that the face synthesis one is faked (faked fake?), watch the face of the woman in the bottom left as it loops.

[https://github.com/NVIDIA/vid2vid/blob/master/imgs/face.gif](https://github.com/NVIDIA/vid2vid/blob/master/imgs/face.gif)

<comment><USER34> I'm not following - can you explain?

<comment><USER33> Her(?) face morphs slightly in the first few frames.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Does anybody know a) the performance (e.g. introduced latency) and processor requirements for the client/input (e.g. is real time canny edge detection good enough and how fast would that run)? and

b) what the latency impact on the NN side to build the images (e.g. how many ms are we talking about?)

Thank a lot!

</comment><comment><USER36> Kind of surprised this stuff hasn't totally blown away traditional video compression techniques yet.

<comment><USER37> I suspect that a combination of the two is where it's at, ie, store a lossy classical compressed version, then remove the artifacts/dream up details with deep learning

<comment><USER38> or pretrain the network on the movie you want to compress, then ship cartoon compressed version + trained network.

<comment><USER36> Right that was exactly what i was thinking

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> As someone not into AI / Machine Learning.

Can we expect CUDA to be the x86 on PC and Servers? Literally all works are defaulting to CUDA and Nvidia's library. I don't even see a contender trying compete. I don't even see AMD's ROCm being used or even mentioned anywhere.

</comment><comment><USER40> I'm curious what would happen if somebody tried to impersonate the US president using this.

He would say it's fake, but who would believe him?

How exactly can computer scientists explain deepfakes to laymen?

<comment> dan-robertson Well I'm this case the results are pretty good locally but have pretty obvious artefacts too. Especially the synthesised road videos, look at the trees or even more at the Lane change in the linked video.

<comment><USER41> Can't you easily obfuscate that by making the video intentionally grainy and low-res and passing it off as "caught by CCTV" or "found footage"?

<comment><USER42> Probably much simpler to get a lookalike, and that's been possible for a long time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Are there any high resolution examples available? Am I just not finding them in the README?

</comment><comment><USER44> holodeck programming step 1.

</comment><comment><USER45> ouch, this hurts</comment>


49 Headline Formulas to Skyrocket Conversions (And Where to Use Them) – SumoMe - <AUTHOR> https://sumome.com/stories/headline-formulas?src=hacker-news-story-headline-formulas <comment><USER2> Nice article about how to make everything sound like clickbait and spam. ^^</comment>


Quick TeX examples, output equations and pseudo code to PNG images - <AUTHOR> http://berlinbrowndev.blogspot.com/2011/12/quick-latex-equation-examples-for-use.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I wanted a one, two, three click, click, click example on getting equations output to PNG. So I wrote this quick blog entry.

You should be able to get started with the examples on cygwin in 10-15 minutes.</comment>


Ben the Bodyguard: The Perils of Promotion That's Better Than the Product - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/1708233/ben-the-bodyguard

<comment><USER3> It's the app store equivalent of the "big box" VHS craze in the mid-late 80s. Video stores had precious shelf space and wanted to cram as many titles face forward so customers can marvel in the variety. To make themselves unique, dubious movie houses made their box art more elaborate: Larger (often twice the size of the tape it held) and more "artistic" (textures, reflective surfaces, holograms, blatantly explicit or exploitative covers, eye-popping colors etc.).

I have a theory that computer book companies do their toned-down version of that as well: Horrifically large and heavy books with large font sizes and images inserted apropos of nothing. Sometimes I look that the O'Reilly Head First or Wiley Dummies books and have trouble keeping track of the actual content with all of the little margin drawings and asides and endless admonitions festooned throughout (not to mention the little one-panel cartoons that often don't make any damn sense at all). They are either large in size or so thick that if displayed spine-first, they still take up a honking amount of shelf space.

The Ben Bodyguard site is the big box/book phase of the app store: Visibility at all costs = Sales (no matter how fleeting).

<comment><USER4> _Sometimes I look that the O'Reilly Head First or Wiley Dummies books and have trouble keeping track of the actual content with all of the little margin drawings and asides and endless admonitions festooned throughout (not to mention the little one-panel cartoons that often don't make any damn sense at all)._

Undergraduate textbooks, too. There's no reason why a first-year physics textbook should be a thousand pages long; the same information presented sensibly could fit in two hundred, maybe one hundred. But it sure does look impressive to the committee in charge of choosing the textbook (and they never have to carry it around or see the pricetag).

On my "to do" list is to write the 150-page freshman physics textbook. (But of course if it existed we could only charge twenty bucks for it, whereas if I threw in five hundred pages of unnecessary pictures and repetition I could quintuple my commission...)

<comment><USER5> One thing that _why mentioned a few times is that textbooks should really be more like 80 pages, max. We don't need index sections or setup directions, those just get out of date quickly... present the information at a reasonably high level, then get out.

<comment><USER6> What do you mean by `index section'?

I find an index to search for keywords at the end of the book quite useful, but that's probably not what you meant, or is it?

<comment><USER5> Not keywords, but often books will come with what's basically `man foo | lpr`. A big old reference section that'll just be bad with the next point release.

Of course, that means there needs to be an updated version of the book...

<comment><USER7> A good index needs human hands; a great index can be invaluable. At one point the indexer of Gray's Anatomy was appointed the editor!

<comment><USER6> I guess you did not get what steve was talking about.

<comment><USER8> I don't know what he's talking about either.

<comment><USER5> Tech books often come with a section in the back that basically just reprints the manual that comes with the software. It's not as bad today as it once was, but you'd often see these big huge books that were essentially 1/3 API reference. Publishers love to do this because it forces new editions to be made with new revisions of the software.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Even if it doesn't live up to expectations of the cartoon, I can guarantee more people will download this app than would have without that promotion. How would that be a failure? Unless they spent a ton of time making the cartoon, which they don't mention doing.

<comment><USER10> _Unless they spent a ton of time making the cartoon_

I'm thinking that promotional site cost somewhere in the five figure range to produce (perhaps less out of pocket, but if they were charging at their normal billing rates, certainly).

Edit: Crikey, I may be underestimating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Seems too early to consider it a failure. Maybe customers will be just as vapid about their security apps as the creators?

<comment><USER12> Is this a good thing? People getting a sense of safety from an app made by people who this article mentions don't care very much about security?

<comment><USER11> Definitely not, but on the other hand I don't think it causes too much harm either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> That feels like the promotion article that tells us the story of the promotion website that failed (or not) to promote the app.

</comment><comment><USER14> EDIT deleted stuff which was in the linked article. Leaving ..

Of course the real product might be iPhone app marketing services.

</comment><comment><USER15> This article assumes that people don't want aesthetics, narrative, or style. It might be over-the-top, but the app has a point of view and a valid function.

<comment><USER8> If it was to deliver, it would need to be a mobile version of trueCrypt - <USER2> something you can do through the iOS API.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> seems like they are ignoring an opportunity for a pivot - their promotion created demand for their web design services, but they want to be an app maker so they don't pay attention to customers for anything other than apps.

<comment><USER17> That's a good point, but moving from selling products to selling client-based services is a regression in the eyes of many.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Maybe it would be time to turn Nerd Communications back into Nerd Films. They could use the app to promote the comic. How ironic.

</comment><comment><USER19> tl;dr <http://images.fastcompany.com/upload/benclipsmall.jpg></comment>


Securing the Network Time Protocol - <AUTHOR> http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2717320 <comment><USER2> It seems that the version numbers don't adequately convey the magnitude of change that the author knows has happened to the software. Point releases changes have hundreds to a thousand bug fixes. While that's not necessarily a major release (because it doesn't break backwards compatibility) it certainly seems worth a point release.

They appear to be fixing this in the new version, when released it should be 5.0.0. But until then, the latest point release has 1100 fixes.</comment>


Steven Spielberg to Direct 'Ready Player One' at Warner Bros - <AUTHOR> http://deadline.com/2015/03/ready-player-one-movie-steven-spielberg-ernest-cline-warner-bros-1201398299/

<comment><USER2> One of the best SCI-FI books ever. Many thought the movie couldn't be made because of all the licensing needed. The question is Spielberg the right one for this? For some reason I think not.</comment>


Meet Marty Cooper - the inventor of the mobile phone - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/8639590.stm <comment><USER2> " _Mr Cooper believes smartphones will become chips to implant behind the ear_ "

Anybody remember the guy with bluetooth surgical implants behind the ear who was ridiculed on Shark Tank?</comment>


Ask HN: Someone is using my email account to sign up for random websites - <AUTHOR> I have recently started receiving a lot of "please confirm your subscription by clicking the link below" emails for things I have not signed up for. 20-30 per hour, which is too much for it to be someone just trying to annoy me. Has anyone gone through this bug before? Is it a scam attempt? Any way to fix it? <comment><USER2> I get around 6 emails per day from various spammers operating from AWS servers[1] asking that I unsubscribe to stop receiving their emails. They presumably want me to: reveal my location (the page has tracking pixels) and that my email works (confirm target address is valid). Or something similarly stupid or valuable to them.

I also got a very threatening email purporting to have access to my gmail etc. I didn't wait around for confirmation. My instant response: got a new sim for its mobile number, set up 2fa on that for gmail. Put new sim in an old phone. Also changed password etc.

I advise anyone with a gmail etc still using sms/text for 2fa to at least set it up so the mobile number used is not one that has ever appeared in your contacts list. Or that you've ever given out to a random website, eg facebook/linkedin. Linkedin has repeatedly lost control[2] over their database in terms of email/phone number.

I kept my main number just for contact as before but I dont use it for 2fa. Also, plenty of other 2fa options exist so use them. Authenticator app is a thing too. Now I have two phones with that app. Very handy.

My new "authentication" phone is a prepaid thing with 365 say expiry and $5 credit. I never make or receive calls on it. Its not on my contact list.

I'll leave out the benefits of having your own domain because this comment is long enough. Only that it makes spam origin detection so much easier. Not to mention filtering.

[1] why gmail can't filter by sender hostname/ip is beyond me. I'd also like to tag emails from unsecured transports. My current solution is reporting spam via gmail and also I'm in the process of extracting out a automated list of AWS hosts that are sending spam so I could report them to AWS.

[2] which is why my very old mobile number that was fresh at the time is now "out there" against my email address. The source was hopefully just linkedin scraping. I know it was only linkedin because that phone was unfortunately destroyed about a week later.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm on the opposite side. A script setting up accounts on our website where clearly the name and email address (and timezone and IP address) don't fit together to get users to click those link in confirmation emails.

Best theory we have is they want to identify users who click on anything to send them a real scam later.

Very annoying.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ugh. I wonder if there is anything I can do that is not just sitting and waiting for them to stop.

I hope I don't have to get rid of my gmail! Alternative is to come up with a way to filter those straight to spam, I guess..?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would advise changing your email passwords and since you are now a target, try to get some kind of 2fa</comment>


Evercoin: A cryptocurrency exchange platform - <AUTHOR> https://evercoin.com/ <comment><USER3> Oh, so it's like [https://shapeshift.io/](https://shapeshift.io/) except subject to the arbitrary and Orwellian US financial regulations!

All jokes aside, I'm not knocking Evercoin. It looks beautiful and I welcome anyone and everyone who wants to bring liquidity to crypto markets. I'm just concerned about the sustainability of any platform based in the US. Maybe Evercoin knows something I don't though.

I feel like the smartest thing we can do is exactly what Bitfinex has done. Shut out US customers and put pressure on regulators to be sensible.

<comment><USER4> Shapeshift is very convenient but the fees are exorbitant compared to other platforms.

<comment><USER5> And Evercoin's fees are even higher.

<comment><USER6> I just tried placing an order and Evercoin's fees appear to be significantly lower.

Shapeshift: 1 BTC -> 14.20477011 ETH

Evercoin: 1 BTC -> 14.25967407 ETH

Changelly: 1 BTC -> 14.35434362 ETH

While Changelly appears to have the best rate they don't guarantee the rate. In my experience the actual rate is often much worse than the estimated rate (and unfortunately it's too late to cancel once you see the rate).

<comment><USER5> I was originally testing BCC to BTC, so it looks like it depends upon what you are exchanging:

Shapeshift: 1 BCC -> 0.06773499 BTC

Evercoin: 1 BCC -> 0.06682701 BTC

<comment><USER7> Maybe someone should build a Kayak for Bitcoin exchanges, that picks the cheapest exchange for each trade...

<comment><USER8> Writing the formula for you

1) pick the cheapest exchange 2) sell at expensive exchange price 3) add commission 4) add network fees

<comment><USER9> The formula is more complicated than this. Services such as shapeshift.io guarantee the price for 10 minutes, as well as sending purchased tokens almost instantaneously. To accomplish this means keeping inventory and becoming vulnerable to volatility risk and liquidity risk.

Picking a reasonable bid-ask spread is hard, and probably involves more input factors than the 4 you listed above.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As others have noted, this is a clone of [https://shapeshift.io/](https://shapeshift.io/). Clones are fine: it's possible that evercoin does something different/better than shapeshift. What is not fine is the apparent lack of transparency in fees [0]. evercoin says that they charge both exchange and miner fees but do not specify either; just because they include the fees in the final price does not mean they do not exist. Compare this to shapeshift [1], which only charges a miner fee, specifying exactly what that fee is.

[0] - from their FAQ ([https://evercoin.com/faq](https://evercoin.com/faq)):

> How about fees?

> Let's assume Evercoin tells you that you will receive 7.55 LTC for > depositing 1 ETH. All fees (our fee and miner/blockchain fee) are all baked > into our pricing so there is no additional fee. That means if we receive > -exactly- 1 ETH then you will get -exactly- 7.55 LTC in your LTC wallet. No > playing with the numbers, no surprises.

[1] - <USER2> [https://info.shapeshift.io/about](https://info.shapeshift.io/about):

>With ShapeShift, what you see is what you get. The exchange rate shown is exactly what you'll receive, minus only the "miner fee." There is no exchange fee, or service fee.

> [fee schedule follows]

<comment><USER11> It doesn't matter. At the end of the day, all you care about is the exchange rate (e) for the number of tokens you send (x) and the number of tokens you get (y). i.e (x/y = e)

The way the exchange determines this rate is entirely upto them. If it's too high, go somewhere else.. but no exchange is required to disclose how they derived their rate. Just because one did, doesn't mean it's any better than the other.

If the e(shapeshift) < e(evercoin), I'd go for Shapeshift, or vice-versa.

In the real world, I wouldn't expect a money-exchange at the airport to include a full breakdown of their costs on their exchange schedule.

<comment><USER12> Actually, in most of the world money exchangers are required by law to state if they charge flat fees/commissions/etc on top of exchange rates, and having "NO FEES/COMMISSIONS" is an advertising point.

So it looks like Evercoin is in the "NO FEES" camp, which would usually mean crummier rates for larger sums, and Shapeshift is in the fee camp, again usually meaning you take a hit on small sums but get better rates for larger sums. (Note that I'm not sure if this is actually the case.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This seems so wacky to me. Are you guys seriously going to start sending thousands of dollars in currency through some random website with a marketing page and a blog?

<comment><USER14> You just described 90% of online merchants.

...and you're right, plenty of online merchants rip people off. This is one reason that large trusted merchants dominate the space (overstock, amazon, newegg, etc..).

If a shapeshift clone exit scam [0] hasn't happened yet it will happen soon. People should do careful research on these sites before using them, just like people should do research on online merchants.

That being said I don't think evercoin is a scam. I'm glad to see competitors to shapeshift and innovation in this space. The website looks great! I wish evercoin all the best.

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_scam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_scam)

<comment><USER15> But aren't you protected by your credit card if the merchant fails to deliver?

<comment><USER13> >But aren't you protected by your credit card if the merchant fails to deliver?

Yes, among other legal protections. The reason this seems so crazy to me is because you have absolutely no recourse in the event of a mishap. The company doesnt even have a published address or phone number. I cant even find a support e-mail. A Google search yields nothing about the company but this announcement. The blog is run entirely by their "Chief Marketing Officer". I guess my skin is not thick enough for the crypto world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Looks like a shapeshift/changelly clone.

<comment><USER17> The simplicity of the conversion is fantastic, but I am perplexed as to how an anonymous exchange exists when there are KYC requirements.

<comment><USER18> first by admitting that KYC wouldn't help stop terrorists even if it was implemented how you imagined it. Even Shapeshift wrote that in response to the WannaCry investigations.

One hop to Monero and the whole money firewall regime is foiled, hopefully enough that the people of any nation ask their governments to stop spending their money on that task, and focus on the economy in more productive ways.

KYC laws apply to national currencies. Any cryptocurrency exchange that has limits is just trying to run a show to appease some senators for the time being.

<comment><USER19> > _KYC laws apply to national currencies_

Assuming federal laws don't apply because you sprinkled some magic around you is a pretty awful way to end up in jail. KYC violations are criminally punishable. Anyone operating a non-compliant exchange is subject to investigation, arrest and asset freezes.

 _Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This comment does not constitute legal nor investment advice._

<comment><USER18> > Assuming federal laws don't apply because you sprinkled some magic around > you is a pretty awful way to end up in jail.

AML/KYC apply to institutions that apply for Money Service Business licenses, MSBs for short. This is promulgated by FinCEN agency of the US Treasury department. FinCEN has comprehensive definitions of what kind of digital currency use is subject to MSB registration.

It is easy for digital currency to other digital currency exchangers to be exempt from those regulations, via one of the codified exemptions, because your straw man argument about federal laws not applying wasn't the argument I was making at all. So now that we've established that, let me know if you want to discuss the something closer to reality.

<comment><USER19> > _AML /KYC apply to institutions that apply for Money Service Business > licenses_

MSBs have KYC requirements. It does not follow that non-MSBs have no KYC requirements. FINRA-member firms, for example, are not MSBs and have strict KYC rules [1].

FinCEN has nowhere said that non-MSBs are exempt from KYC. Nobody can competently say that. All American businesses are subject to the minimum threshold of KYC responsibility in coöperating with OFAC restrictions [2].

[1] [http://www.finra.org/industry/notices/11-02](http://www.finra.org/industry/notices/11-02)

[2] [https://www.treasury.gov/resource- center/faqs/Sanctions/Page...](https://www.treasury.gov/resource- center/faqs/Sanctions/Pages/faq_general.aspx)

 _Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This comment does not constitute legal nor investment advice._

<comment><USER18> FinCEN wouldn't be the agency to say non-MSBs are exempt from KYC.

There may be a kind of FINRA member firm that is both regulated by the SEC and not an MSB, but many kinds, such as broker-dealers are regulated by both FINRA and the SEC and subject to the source you linked.

Yes, OFAC is a different discussion with different considerations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Their LinkedIn profile doesn't inspire much confidence except for everyone is Turkish and they keep recommending each other there.

</comment><comment><USER21> Sure, let's just hide the fees and not tell users they are getting taken. How about some transparency?

<comment><USER22> This is Talip@Evercoin. We have mainly two kinds of fees. Miner/Network fees, which are fixed and can be listed (and we will). Second one is our fee, which is dynamically calculated based on multiple parameters such as our reserve, market trend and recent transactions. It is basically a risk calculation. We can and should say that on our FAQ but not sure if that is going to be 'transparent' enough. Btw, we are a new service, we need feedback from the community to know how to make our service better and time to get them done. We are committed to become better. So please keep the feedback coming.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I am naive but why is there not a decentralized service for exchanging cryptocurrency (or is there?)?

<comment><USER24> There are, see Etherdelta. And also projects like 0xproject.com are working on going entirely trustless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Is there any simple exchange like this that accept Paypal? I am losing too much in fees buying locally. And using places like Localbitcoin is too much expensive.

</comment><comment><USER26> How is different than having a Bittrex account and then using Bittrex's API to perform trades based on people's request on the website?

</comment><comment><USER27> A noble attempt, but without supporting Monero you're not supporting fungibility and privacy.

I hope this is an oversight that you'll correct.

<comment><USER22> This is Talip@Evercoin. Yes we are currently working on adding Monero. Should be ready in a week. Thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Why not Neo? Seems like the hottest one to support right now. Would probably test it out if you get that working :)

</comment><comment><USER29> I was hoping to learn that the in game coin for EverQuest was backed by a public blockchain

<comment><USER30> Couldn't that stop gold farming / selling? Proof of work (proof of grinding)?

<comment><USER31> Online games give gold to their users liberally as positive reinforcement for playing the game.

That's probably not compatible with a strict minting schedule constrained by a proof of work system.

<comment><USER32> Also, making it super easy for gold farmers to cash out probably isn't great if you don't want large gold farming groups affecting the game economy and making it harder for legit non-gold-buying players.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> An exchange for unlicensed securities, hope they enjoy what's coming for them

<comment><USER34> what do you mean by unlicensed security?

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Hi everyone.

I am Miko from Evercoin and I'm happy to answer your questions.

The People Behind EverCoin

I'm happy to see people on this board looking at our service with suspicion, this is normal and the community needs to protect itself from scammers. We do show our own faces and linkedin profiles on the front page of our exchange. Yes, it is possible that people are just using the identities of others. We are obviously not so prominent or famous but I do have a number of fairly prominent people in crypto who could vouch for us or who have met us including general partners at Pantera Capital, Jackson Palmer, originator of Dogecoin, Robert CEO of ZenCash, Zooko from Zcash and many others. I know these aren't necessarily the gods of crypto like Vitalik Buterin, but I havent met him so he can't say if I'm a real person or not. I am one of the organizers of the SF Advanced Crypto Asset Trading group and Crypto Underground meetup, so 3500 people in that community know who I am at some level. Anyhow, I welcome the suspicion, I hate scammers as much as anyone and feel like everyone who asks you to "send bitcoin to this address" deserves to be checked out. I've been in Silicon Valley for 25 years working in tech.

Check out our Linkedin here Miko (me) [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikomatsumura/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikomatsumura/) Talip's linkedin is here [https://www.linkedin.com/in/talipozturk/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/talipozturk/) Yasin's [https://www.linkedin.com/in/yasin- tamer/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/yasin-tamer/) Ahmed's [https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahmet- alptekin/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahmet-alptekin/) Ismael's [https://www.linkedin.com/in/ismaelkose/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ismaelkose/)

Talip created the open source project Hazelcast. [https://github.com/hazelcast/hazelcast](https://github.com/hazelcast/hazelcast) a github based Apache open source licensed project with over 24,000 commits and 143 committers.

Honestly, we are a BRAND NEW service, so there are very few reviews. Here is us on Product Hunt [https://www.producthunt.com/posts/evercoin](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/evercoin) Here is our Blog [https://blog.evercoin.com/](https://blog.evercoin.com/)

We need to get more reviews. it will take time to become a trusted and reliable member of this community, we get it. We will keep working hard to earn your trust.

If you want to see our offices, this is what it looks like: [https://cdn- images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*5NMG03OXtNCUzXnKYj...](https://cdn- images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*5NMG03OXtNCUzXnKYjQr-g.jpeg)

Meet us better on this blog post [https://blog.evercoin.com/meet-evercoin- exchange-4506f897545...](https://blog.evercoin.com/meet-evercoin- exchange-4506f8975459)

Happy to answer any other questions you all may have.

How to start As with any crypto service, start small. Just try a very small transaction to see how the system behaves. It's a fully functional system, so you'll immediately get the feeling of that. And yes, do your homework.

</comment><comment><USER36> Any plans to support Monero?

<comment><USER22> We just added Monero today!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is the rate shown when placing an order guaranteed or an estimate?

</comment><comment><USER37> This kind of activity spurs 'The Dawn of $1B ICO's' [https://hackernoon.com/the-dawn-of- the-1b-ico-a0486f6587a2](https://hackernoon.com/the-dawn-of- the-1b-ico-a0486f6587a2)

</comment><comment><USER38> High fees, no good coins, bare bones functionality.

Why would I use this when there a dozen better products that do this and more?

<comment><USER22> This is Talip@Evercoin. We will be adding more coins over time starting with Monero in a week. We think support matters a lot. We want to make sure we are quickly reachable via anonymous chat on the website when needed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Unfortunately, they don't have IOTA listed...

What is IOTA?

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h09z2N0MtuQ](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h09z2N0MtuQ)</comment>


Software Preservation Group - <AUTHOR> http://www.softwarepreservation.org/ <comment><USER2> Reminded me of my old Kaypro (CP/M). I have/had a DOS based emulator, nice22^H^H^H^H^H^H 22nice.

Googling around for it turns up:

<http://www.dcast.vbox.co.uk/cpm_over.html>

<http://www.cpm.z80.de/emulate.html>

The latter has a copy for download. (Although both also provide alternatives, some maybe better.)

Now, I think I still have access to an idle 5 1/4 floppy drive and a PC with an old enough bus to use it. Long overdue to do a bit of personal preservation.

I also have a CD ROM that I ordered years ago from some outfit in Oak Creek, CA, IIRC, that has a bunch of CP/M based software. If I can find it and it has not rotted...

<comment><USER3> Any PC with a floppy port will do. The difference between 3.5 and 5.25 is the connector. If there is one good thing in a modern PC is that it is a matrioshka of every older PC design going down all the way from your Core i7 mobo to an IBM 5150.

I bet my Atom-based netbook initializes an ISA bus and a couple serial ports when it boots.

<comment><USER2> That's a bet I won't take. I guess I meant a physically exposed bus with a connector I can use.

I've seen USB adapted 3.5 drives, but I don't think I've seen one in the 5.25 format. If I did, it might be priced at a significant percentage of the cost of your netbook!

I suppose someone still sells internal adapter cards, or there's eBay and the junk store. I keep forgetting about eBay; I guess I've no immediate worries about acquiring some piece of equipment if needed. But I still have a couple of relics laying around that should do.

BTW, I still miss that Kaypro's keyboard -- not half bad. Less so, "hacking" up Wordstar documents with control sequences to backspace the Okidata to make do-it-yourself Umlauts and Eszett.

But now I guess I'm drifting over to hardware, whose preservation is a separate group.

<comment><USER3> "That's a bet I won't take. I guess I meant a physically exposed bus with a connector I can use."

Of course not. It's only an imaginary bus, present only in the chipset and required by the UARTs that drive the serial ports.

A 3.5 USB adapter may suffice. You would have to match the cable for a 5.25 drive (usually it is within the computer box that has the drive :-P )

As for the keyboards... I still want to build some "classic" keyboards respecting the lay-out of some old and badly missed computers. Tooling would be a problem.

<comment><USER2> _A 3.5 USB adapter may suffice. You would have to match the cable for a 5.25 drive (usually it is within the computer box that has the drive :-P )_

I hadn't thought of that. Thanks!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


GitHub forking has one big flaw - <AUTHOR> http://zbowling.github.com/blog/2011/11/25/github/ <comment><USER2>
      Forks are almost to easy to create. Forks get created
      constantly and go no where.

      ...

      I would love if GitHub supported a model where if I
      forked a repo at a version and made no changes, it
      treated it like a private repo. It shouldn't be visible
      to anyone except me (unless someone hits the url
      directly) until I push my first commit that is different
      than the upstream. At that point it should flip to
      public. This would clean up some of the fork soup we see
      on pages.

My misgivings with the "root repo" aspect of this post aside, this suggestion is great; I'd really love to see this picked up by the GitHub guys.

(As mentioned in one of the post's comments, some popular projects have a _lot_ of empty forks, which makes viewing one of their Network screens an absolute nightmare to browse when looking for active forks.)

<comment><USER3> Exactly. Branches do this already (they hide if they can be fast-forwarded). If you can fast-forward merge a fork into the local one, it should be hidden when I viewing the network page, just like local branches.

The network graph they render already does this to some extent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What's with people declaring things they don't like, or could be improved as "broken"? GitHub's forking is not "horribly broken". I like the ideas in this article, but they are just that: ideas.

<comment><USER5> Maybe github is not "horribly broken", but there are a lot of broken projects on github with the problem he describes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Not all forks are equal and no one repo is necessarily any more important than any other (including the original repo)."

I think the argument can be made that this is exactly why git is cool. Which repository is considered the "master" repository becomes a "social decision" instead of a technical one (by means of the admin rights). However, GitHub emphasizes the role of the "original" repository by mentioning it everywhere (as pointed out by the author).

In my opinion, it is a fair point to argue that adding a description to forks would be useful. But to say that the GitHub model is fundamentally flawed takes is a step too far for me.

The article also mentions that it would be great to have more options regarding pull requests. This is indeed something that I would also find useful. Maybe there could be the "standard" pull request, but optionally the user could propose a fullow-up action on the pull request!?

<comment><USER7> > I think the argument can be made that this is exactly why git is cool. Which > repository is considered the "master" repository becomes a "social decision" > instead of a technical one (by means of the admin rights). However, GitHub > emphasizes the role of the "original" repository by mentioning it everywhere > (as pointed out by the author).

That's TFA's whole point...

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I most definitely want to see the parent repository. It is extremely valuable. Especially when I come across a repository that hasn't been updated in a couple years and by clicking on the parent I can see that the fork was just there for some short-lived reason.

I agree that sometimes I find it frustrating why a fork exists, but usually just looking at it in the network view is more than enough and is exactly what makes git/github so amazing.

<comment><USER5> But what if it's the parent repository that hasn't been updated for a couple of years? I've run across this scenario many times.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> You can use repository labels on Github. Here is a "root" repository with a note saying to use another one:

<https://github.com/rails/dynamic_form>

[https://img.skitch.com/20111126-daej32y71sjau9sm3a5t356gac.p...](https://img.skitch.com/20111126-daej32y71sjau9sm3a5t356gac.png)

<comment><USER5> That's part of the solution, but labels aren't ubiquitous: <https://github.com/rails/dynamic_form/network/members>

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm impressed that this blogpost wasn't titled "GitHub has one big forking flaw".

That aside, I think github's model is largely correct. In git itself, a commit is a child of a parent (or parents).

</comment><comment><USER11> Rarely has one blog post complained for so long about something that matters so little.

He isn't arguing there is an actual flaw, he is arguing that the feature isn't identical to what he hypothetically wants He doesn't give practical problems with it, just hypothetical problems.

For example, he says it's hard to tell 'the importance' of a fork. The importance of a fork is whether or not it is the original project, or a fork. If it's the original project, it's what you were looking for. If not, it's not, unless you were looking for a modification or feature missing in the original. In the latter case, you don't need to see the 'importance', whatever that means, you need to see the diff. Or have someone recommending it.

Anyway, the post just rambles for pages.

Speaking of flaws, HN has one big flaw, which is not showing sub-domains (and thus tricking me into clicking this link, thinking it was an official github thing).

<comment><USER3> I'm sorry, but I don't believe I was rambling. There is a flaw in the approach that they are taking. I made this clear several times by pointing out Linus's talk and the background of forking on Git.

When I make an argument, I try to be thorough and show evidence, then propose a solution rather than just complaining.

I agree with you that the project is important if it's important. That is _exactly_ what I want. Let the community decide. I hate GitHub implying that my fork is any more or less important unilaterally because I was just the original or not. I document evidence that people follow that link even when the parent is a dead project I put in place.

This one issue has really been festering at me for the last couple years on GitHub. As the number of projects grow, more projects are starting to bitrot and the problem is only getting bigger.

<comment><USER12> I could not agree more.

When I find a new cool library or program on github I often have trouble finding the "official" or "best" version. Many times it is of course the root repository of all forks, but often the original developer moved on and someone else picked up his work. If there are only 2 or 3 forks I can check them all, but more is impractical.

When I put stuff on github myself I often lose interest in the software, but someone was nice enough to fork the project and keep working on it. Unfortunately my project will still always be displayed as the most important version.

Some software developers have decided to create a shared account (or, since Github now supports this too, an "Organization") to prevent this problem (see for example github.com/ruby/). When one developer decides to leave the Ruby developement team, he is simply removed from the shared account/organization, but the project URL stays the same.

<comment><USER9> Look at the Network activity. It shows you the level and dates of commits of all the forked repositories.

<comment><USER5> This doesn't always help as much as you would think it should. Often times I've seen a fork with a lot of recent commits, but it's actually a bunch of pseudo-private changes against an old version.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Related to the article, although not directly to the main point ("Should GH bless the root of project forks"): So - I looked at the pull request that was linked to as 'couldn't get our fixes upstream'.

I don't know the project, but I was totally lost when I read the commit messages in the pull request. Samples:

      I fixed something
      small change'
      better idea
      class custer method
      much much better
      no such thing as an error here.

In the end upstream was lost as well, which might or might not be related to patch size and - erm - a little mess?

I know Zac is doing some pretty cool stuff, but this seems like dumping code, i.e. looks careless to me.

<comment><USER3> Yes, this is my biggest issue. I don't squash my commits like I should but this comes from our company repo and just gets imported. I tend to look at the last commit and just compare diffs for feature branch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I agree that more efforts should be put into making forks purpose and activity more visible and comparable.

For me the GitHub network graph is invaluable when it comes to assessing forks activity and their potential usefulness. Very often my first action after coming across a fork is to navigate to the parent repository, but the very second one is clicking on "show me the fork graph".

The network graph, while still having it's flaws, is a tremendous advantage over Bitbucket and provides some overview on where currently the development is happening and what people are working on.

</comment><comment><USER15> For what is worth, the "Before git and mercurial, merging was a nightmare in most monolithic source control systems" seems like a heavy misconception for me. How many people actually tried? The pypy project was using heavy branching and merging on svn and it worked just fine. The only "drawback" was that everyone had to have commit rights to the main repo. I say "drawback" because liberal policies to giving commit rights _never_ ended up badly. Actually newcomers with commit rights are always more careful than old contributors.

</comment><comment><USER16> I disagree with this post entirely. When looking at forks on Github its very easy to tell if someone has done anything meaningful by looking at the network graph and viewing commit messages (of course this is assuming they used sane messages in the first place)

<comment><USER3> entirely?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> With regards to people forking a private repo, I'm still not not sure how to work with "collaborators".

I want them to fork and "pull request", but it seems they can just push back into my master at will.

Maybe I'm looking at it the wrong way.

<comment><USER18> That's what "collaborator" means in Github parlance. If you don't want people to have this permission, don't make them collaborators. If you want people to be collaborators but work mostly on their own fork and send pull requests, ask them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> just add a note to the Readme pointing to the new fork that took over?

<comment><USER3> I thought the same thing. You can switch the "root" if you coordinate with the root repo owner and GitHub support. Often those projects are dead or the maintainer doesn't respond.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I disagree but think this is all a matter of personal preference. There's a choice to be made here. Usually the original project is updated more often and is more useful to the most people. That's generally speaking, of course. A lot of forks are for niche situations or for experimenting like the author says. I much prefer to know the hierarchy of a project and it's forks rather than just seeing a list of forks and not knowing which is the original. Plus, you can use repo labels on GitHub.

I forked HTML5 Boilerplate and created my own custom boilerplate plus CSS framework from it. While I want people to use it and think its valuable I must admit that my humble little project is not half as good as the original it was forked from. I'd want people to know that my fork is a descendant of the original and be informed before deciding to use mine. That's why I deleted my fork and just created a new repo (though I do make sure I let people know what the basis for it was).

Does that make sense? Would a lot of people agree this isn't a flaw but just a matter of personal preference? I've only been using version control (Git is the only system I've tried) for about 4 months or so, so maybe my view is flawed due to lack of experience or proficiency.

On a side note, I noticed a lot of grammatical errors that really _really_ bugged me. I hate to nitpick but I can't help myself. I hope the author corrects his use of "then" instead of "than" and the incorrect usage of "very" where it should read "vary" especially. Not trying to be a dick, just wanna be helpful.

<comment><USER3> Sorry. I didn't expect this to be trending on HackerNews or I would of done another pass over it for grammar.

Edit: fixed [https://github.com/zbowling/zbowling.github.com/commit/84ece...](https://github.com/zbowling/zbowling.github.com/commit/84ece6f3e0262db11e835a85fccb8358214d9289)

<comment><USER21> "Would have". :)

<comment><USER3> I'm just going to say that I was trolling instead of admit that I made another mistake.

<comment><USER22> "admitting" :).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is git. The point is that it's decentralised.</comment>


Microsoft's Quiet Success Story: Windows 7 - <AUTHOR> http://www.newsweek.com/id/235725 <comment><USER2> Honestly, it's good to hear. I really like Windows 7, and I appreciate that a lot of work has gone into making me more efficient as a user. I'm a Mac/Windows/Gnome user currently and I have to say Windows 7 is my favorite desktop OS so far (except for web development, I like a native *nix shell).

It's great to see progression and what MS is capable of in the face of competition.

<comment><USER3> I'm in the same boat too. W7 is my favorite OS so far and I do miss the shell. I adapted myself to use Cygwin to fill the gap though. Windows powershell, while a good effort, is not exactly what I'm looking for. The goodness of a shell extends beyond the raw commands. cygwin + rxvt + zsh is my current shell setup and it works pretty well for me.

<comment><USER2> VirtualBox+Linux usually satisfies my shell needs, and the rest I'll use putty for (which is definitely showing its age)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> We started a transition from XP to windows 7,for staff. and after the dramatic drop in support calls, the gained speed, and the general approval of users many of which are natives of Apple, our only problem is that we are not doing the transition fast enough.

7 is a very solid experience, Without fanfare it seems under the radar Microsoft is gaining ground, i have a suspicion they are actually using the lack of limelight to their advantage.

</comment><comment><USER5> Windows 7 is so much better than vista. I almost switched to a Mac, but gave Microsoft one more chance. I am glad I did.

<comment><USER6> Vista wasn't so bad, to me Windows 7 is Vista with more speed and better UI.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Most of the article is pretty good, but in its analysis at the end, I think it loses it.

 _It may be that as the computer market has grown more mature, it has developed what consultants Al and Laura Riese call the "mushy middle." That's the huge dead zone that lies between sexy, expensive products at the high end and the low-end products that appeal to bargain hunters. In computers, Apple holds the high ground with its expensive laptops. The low end ... is also becoming Apple territory, thanks to the iPhone and the iPad, both of which are basically small, simple computers._

The author seems to be redefining his terms in the middle. Yes, Apple does hold a fancy, expensive high ground. However, I think it's a stretch to think of the iPhone and iPad as a simple _inexpensive_ low ground. These products cost more than a typical "middle-ground" desktop (if you're only looking at price), and more than a cheap netbook like my eeePC (if you're considering capabilities and price).

As far as I can see, Apple _only_ holds the expensive high ground, across several markets (notebook, phone, ultraportable tablet/netbook, media player). Each of these markets has a midlle and low ground beneath the Apple boutique range.

</comment><comment><USER8> While it's technically a huge leap forward, I still just can't grok the UI. My wifes machine is on Windows 7 and it just (for whatever reason) is unusable to me.

<comment><USER9> Same here. The control panel is absolutely baffling. I never know where a given feature is hidden.

I've been a Linux user - from XP to Red Hat to Debian to Ubuntu - for a while now and every time I have to do something more complicated or unexpected on Windows, I waste an unpredictable amount of time.

It's not user-friendly, unless you choose your users with great care.

There are reasons to run Windows: Office (mostly specialized Excel plug-ins), Visual Studio (if you develop for Windows, it's not like you could get away running something else), games and specific hardware support, but, apart from that, I can't imagine why I would want to use it.

Just last night I was on my company-issued laptop, wondering why I could view pictures I took with my phone, but not drag them to a folder on the desktop. I had to e-mail a couple of them and spent a good 15 minutes trying to figure out a way not to copy them one by one, something that, oddly, I could do.

For me, the most effective setup is a Linux (or other Unix-ish OS) with Windows on a VM for the Windows-specific stuff.

And for games that won't run well on a VM, there is always the Playstation.

<comment><USER10> When you're in control panel, in the upper right hand corner, start typing what you're looking for and it will ajaxy filter down to what you're looking for.

This is such a useful feature that they should have delivered years ago, and they should make this WAY more obvious in the UI, as I doubt most people realize this.

You can often find what you are looking for just by doing the same from the start menu now rather than going into control panel.

As for your photos issue, if they were still physically on your phone, I suspect this would be caused by your phone not properly supporting some standard interface, but that's just a guess.

<comment><USER9> > As for your photos issue, if they were still physically on your phone, I > suspect this would be caused by your phone not properly supporting some > standard interface, but that's just a guess.

Works flawlessly on Ubuntu... In fact, that's simple enough I would never suspect Windows would fail me on _that_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Windows XP isn't long in the tooth. With a good set of registry edits, an SSD drive, Firefox and Google Chrome, I don't even notice it's there.

<comment><USER12> You should be careful. A lot of security features that we take for granted nowadays (stack protection, privilege separation, etc.) are poorly featured or nonexistent in Windows XP. If you aren't running any services and are running behind a firewall it may not be a big deal, but it's a good thing to keep in mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> In my personal opinion, because of Windows' position in the market place, they do not need or want glam and glitz and 'gushing reviews'. The best result for them is the silent, global adoption of a product that simply does it's job, and does it well. No one raves about *nix, but it dominates the server market, and encapsules the high-end computing market almost entirely.

flash-bang-whiz is a hallmark of the underdog, the has-been, the also-ran.

It could be said, for someone in their position, no news is the best news.

(Some flash can be useful; see the 80's and 90's, with hot sports cars working to bring average Joe's into the showroom to buy other things. Similar concept to loss-leaders, except it functions through image instead of discounts.)

<comment><USER14> What does that make Windows 95 with its insanely hyped launch?

"Windows 95 was an event. People lined up for blocks outside computer stores (like Egghead) at midnight to get their copy of Microsoft's newest operating system. Rolling Stones' song "Start Me Up" set the tone for the launch." ([http://www.betanews.com/article/10-Years-On- Windows-95-Remem...](http://www.betanews.com/article/10-Years-On- Windows-95-Remembered/1124901092))

<comment><USER13> Win95 was kind of the creation of a new type of computing. Now that the market exists, it doesn't need to be sensationalized to get a toehold.

At least, that's my first thought.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> During March Madness, they pitched Windows 7 with the feature "shake a window and all the other windows minimize". It's not really related to this article but I just felt it was very odd from them.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, I almost never use that. But I really like how I can drag a maximized window and it normalizes or drag a normalized window to the top and it maximizes.

I got a mac mini for some iPhone development and I'm constantly perplexed at how their window managment works. It seems everything is always normalized. I like the mini well enough, it just feels weird to me.

<comment><USER15> Plus, it is so hard to use. Sometimes I shake a window and it doesn't work. Like if there was a concept behind it that I couldn't understand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> As an owner of a Windows Mobile 6 phone, I am hoping that 7 is also a magic number for their mobile OS as well. I can certainly agree that the move from XP to 7 and Vista to 7 was excellent.

<comment><USER18> As a guy who does tech support for cell phones, I am hoping that Windows Mobile phones disappear from the earth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> on a side note, the author looks a lot like the PC guy from the mac ads.

<comment><USER20> The author is Dan Lyons aka Fake Steve Jobs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I suspect it's because Apple's success story is louder. (ie, bigger, more so, better, etc.)

</comment><comment><USER21> Let me guess: somebody near the top of Microsoft said, "Apple's kicking our butt. Time to copy^H^H^H^Her, I mean, try to catch up again." And somebody else said, "Yes, boss." And the result: Windows 7.

I haven't used it as much as I have Vista and XP, but from the amount I have it feels like that's what the case is again.

<comment><USER21> Posting to HN is like playing roulette. Post a comment in one thread that you think is true and funny, bingo, gain 26 karma. Do it again in another thread, bang, lose 4. I never know ahead of time which case it will be. The net trend is positive, at least.

On-topic: just went to Microsoft's site and read their Top 10 Reasons why Windows 7 is so cool, and, as I suspected previously, 90% of the gee-whiz features touted were already in Mac OS X. One could argue that Apple is historically treated by Microsoft as a sort of external, unwitting R&D arm. Except it's better than their internal R&D in one crucial area: Microsoft doesn't have to pay for it!

<comment><USER22> > _Posting to HN is like playing roulette._

A hint: your comment that got dumped on here (1) has little/no useful content, (1a) is only barely related to the article, (2) is a tired cliché, (3) is snarky to the point of being mean spirited.

I hope that even if you get a "positive net trend" with similar comments, it doesn't encourage you. If you're going to angle for "funny", the joke has to be some combination of surprising, new, or especially relevant. Because most throw-away joke lines fail these criteria, they tend to get voted down: they're mostly an uninteresting distraction from whatever other conversation is going on.

Also, your second comment is just a repeat of the lame joke of the first comment.

<comment><USER9> And, BTW, the maximize-when-dragged-to-top and normalize-when-dragged-out-of- top was lifted straight from Unixes (Gnome, I think, but it could have been done earlier somewhere else), not from OSX.

OSX is an amazingly well-designed OS and has been a pleasure to use since the time it ran only on NeXT's black cubes, but it's not the source of all of Microsoft's ideas.

To be fair, they come up with some good ones from time to time too.

<comment><USER23> > To be fair, they come up with some good ones from time to time too.

Bing is a good example. I cant stress enough how much I enjoy using that site, whether its the infinite scrolling image search, mouse over video preview, or even just the new picture everyday.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google Images - <AUTHOR> http://500px.com/

<comment><USER2> why is this post titled "Google Images" ? I either don't see the connection or the title is misleading.</comment>